Page 22 of Knot Your Karma
I follow her into what appears to be her office—afternoon light through harbor-view windows, a desk covered in paperwork, a comfortable couch. But Karma isn’t looking at any of that. She’s looking at the chaos.
Papers scattered across every surface, books stacked haphazardly, maritime catalogs spread open and overlapping, pens scattered like confetti. The kind of disorganization that suggests this isn’t normal.
“It’s all wrong,” she says, starting to gather papers with shaking hands. “The filing system is backwards, these invoices should be organized by date, and why are these auction catalogs mixed in with my appraisal notes? How did I let it get this bad?”
I watch her arrange papers with focused intensity,recognizing what I’m seeing. She’s creating order from chaos—an omega making her space safe.
“Karma,” I say gently. “Hey, it’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” she says, still clutching invoices. “Nothing about this is okay. I’ve been pretending I have my life together when clearly I’m a disaster, and now there’s—” She gestures vaguely in my direction. “There’s this whole situation happening that I definitely can’t handle.”
“What if I help?” I offer, gesturing toward the scattered papers. “Intense filing systems are basically my love language. I once organized my roommate’s emotional baggage by severity and probable resolution time.”
She stares at me like I just offered to solve world hunger with a spreadsheet. “You want to help me organize my disaster office?”
“I want to help you feel better,” I say honestly, sinking into the chair across from her desk instead of looming. “Whatever’s got you this scared, we can figure it out. And if organizing helps, then yeah, I want to help organize.”
For a moment, she just looks at me, and I can scent the shift as some of her panic settles into cautious hope.
Reed, one point.
“Okay,” she says quietly. “But I should warn you—I have very specific ideas about how things should be arranged.”
“I love specific filing systems,” I assure her, already moving toward the desk. “Tell me where to start.”
For the next half-hour, I help her transform the office chaos into something manageable. She directs with focused intensity, explaining the proper way to organize maritime appraisal documents
“No, the provenance papers gobehindthe condition reports, because you need the history before you assess the current state”, and I follow her lead, staying close enough to help but giving her space to breathe.
Her organizational system is incredibly detailed—borderlineobsessive, actually—but watching her explain why each step matters, I realize this isn’t just about filing. This is about creating order when everything else in her life feels chaotic. Classic omega nesting behavior, except instead of blankets and pillows, she’s using invoice systems and catalog cross-references.
The vanilla scent gradually warms and sweetens as we work, and the tension leaves her shoulders. But about forty minutes in, her stomach growls so loudly it sounds like a small angry bear has taken up residence in her abdomen.
“When’s the last time you ate?” I ask, pausing mid-sort through auction catalogs.
She glances up from her perfectly aligned invoice stacks, looking genuinely confused by the question. “I... what time is it?”
“Almost four.”
“Oh.” She blinks like this information doesn’t quite compute. “I had coffee this morning?”
“Coffee is not food, Karma.”
“Coffee with cream is basically a beverage meal,” she says defensively, but her stomach chooses that moment to growl again, completely undermining her argument.
“Right. That settles it.” I pull out my phone. “What do you usually order from wherever delivers around here?”
“You don’t have to?—”
“I’m ordering food. The question is whether you want input on what I get you, or if you trust me to make executive decisions about your nutritional welfare.”
She stares at me like I just offered to reorganize the entire Library of Congress. “You’re going to feed me?”
“I’m going to make sure you eat something that isn’t caffeine-based,” I correct, though something warm settles in my chest at the way she saidfeed me. Very omega phrasing, that. “Come on, help me out here. What sounds good?”
Her expression goes soft and a little wondering, likerandom acts of basic human care are foreign concepts. Which, given what she’s hinted about her past, they probably are.
“There’s a Thai place,” she says quietly. “Anchor Bay Thai. They have really good pad see ew, and their tom kha soup is...” She trails off, looking embarrassed. “Sorry. I’m probably being too specific.”
